


199. choices

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [282]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 07:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10566129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: She’s so tired, Helena can tell, she looks so tired. Helena’s shoulders just have the heat on them but Sarah’s shoulders have a weight Helena can’t shift. When Helena holds her memories in her hands and flips through them, it seems like that weight was always there – in the club, in the ship, in the car. Maybe even in the camp, though Helena couldn’t see through the grate.





	

Outside of the food-place the sun is bright and hot, and the heat curls up on Helena’s shoulders like an animal seeking invitation. Every time someone walks by her she tips her hat at them; sometimes they tip their hats back. She could stay here. Nobody knows her name. She could stay here, and always wear this hat.

Then Sarah is on the porch behind her, and that idea was always stupid. Helena tilts her head back to look at Sarah, mouth wide and open, until Sarah tips her a smirk and sits down on the edge of the porch next to her.

“S said you worked things out,” she says. She looks tired. Her hair is wet, from the shower, but Helena knows wet hair dries fast in this heat. Soon Sarah will just look like Sarah again. That’s always what Helena hopes: that if they wait long enough they’ll all look just like what they were supposed to be.

“Yes,” Helena says. “She is going to be a granny to my baby. She is a good fighter. She will help keep my baby safe.”

“Think you got that handled on your own,” Sarah says, scuffing a foot through the dirt. “Saw S’ face, yeah?”

She’s looking down at the dirt. Her foot draws waggling lines that don’t go anywhere. She’s so tired, Helena can tell, she looks so tired. Helena’s shoulders just have the heat on them but Sarah’s shoulders have a weight Helena can’t shift. When Helena holds her memories in her hands and flips through them, it seems like that weight was always there – in the club, in the ship, in the car. Maybe even in the camp, though Helena couldn’t see through the grate.

She wants to help, she does. She wants to take that weight away. There have to be words Helena can say that let Sarah say words like _help me_ or _I’m tired and I need—_

“Sometimes,” Helena says, tapping her own foot into the dirt (dust flies everywhere), “you need somebody else to help you. It takes towns to help babies grow.”

Sarah laughs, a little, under her breath. “Takes a _village_ , meathead.”

“Same as town.”

“Not really.”

“I want to be there for my baby always,” Helena says, pressing onwards anyways – she’s trying to make her words into promises but she’s not as good at it as Sarah seems to be. Could she talk Sarah away from a gun? Maybe not. Can she talk Sarah away from falling to her knees under her own weight? She can only hope for that. “But. I think you need help. Other people to take babies from you, when you are tired, or hungry, or your arms are weak.

“S said I couldn’t have you without your family,” she says. “So. Family is part of you, yes? Family is there to help when you can’t help. This is what S told me, I think, before she used her fists.”

Sarah laughs again, sound like the ball of weeds rolling by down the street. She tries to pull her fingers through her hair but it’s too wet for it, and she just tugs at her own scalp. “You almost beat the shit out of each other, huh,” she mutters.

“But we didn’t,” Helena points out, “because of the baby. Because she wanted to protect the baby.” Sarah doesn’t get it. Hopeless, Helena’s sister. If she’d make everything about herself it would be easier. Helena makes everything about Sarah anyways. If Sarah could see the way she did, they would already be done with all this talking.

Sarah looks at her sideways; her foot slows in the dirt, her fingers pinch at each other. “You know we’re all gonna help,” she says. “Me, S, Fe – bet Alison’d love to knit baby shoes, yeah?”

Helena, inside, is one big long _ugh_. Of course she knows! Just like she knows that all of those people would be there for Sarah if she would sit down and say: _here are my hurts, and here is why they hurt._

Though maybe Alison knitting baby shoes wouldn’t help with that.

“I know,” she says instead. “And I will be there for them. If there are problems. I want to help my _sestras_ —” (and she turns and looks at Sarah, hard) “—all of my _sestras_.”

Sarah stares at her, the same way Helena is staring. Hard, curious, full of something loving. “I know you do,” she says quietly. She reaches out and puts her hand on Helena’s shoulder, in that place where there is no weight. “I’m – I’m so glad you’re comin’ home, Helena.”

_I can take it_ , a voice inside Helena shrieks, _I can help, just let me, just tell me what to do to make you stop looking so tired, I’m scared that when your hair dries you’ll still look this sad and I want to_ fix it, _just let me._ But Sarah’s hand is on her shoulder and Helena – selfish – does not want that hand to go away. Helena, selfish, wants Sarah to be glad Helena is coming home. If Helena pushes maybe that will go away. Maybe Sarah will go back inside and leave Helena out here alone.

Helena puts her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, so they’re mirrored. “I am glad also,” she says. “That we are coming home. Together.”

She can’t feel anything under her hand, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It’ll go away, it’ll have to. Maybe if Helena just gives it time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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